Supply Problems Plagued the Continental Army from the Start

Frank E. Grizzard, Jr.
The Papers of George Washington

Almost everyone is familiar with the great suffering that
George Washington's troops endured while encamped at Valley Forge,
Pennsylvania, in the winter of 1777-1778. Less well known is the
fact that nearly all of the supply problems faced by the
Continental army during that winter had existed since the very
first weeks of the war and would continue to plague the army in the
years following. Inadequate administrative procedures, a scarcity
of money and the failure of credit, a weak transportation system,
and a lack of manufacturing all combined with the natural obstacles
of geography and weather to create frequent shortages of food,
clothing, tents, and other military supplies throughout the war.
The difficulties caused by these problems appeared during the
Boston Campaign, beginning in April 1775 and continuing through the
army's first winter. Critical shortages of arms and ammunition,
clothing, shelter, and camp equipment persisted in spite of
repeated appeals to political authorities and the local population;
food rations for both man and beast were unpredictable.

The Continental Congress's efforts to equip and feed its army
were inadequate from the start. The sheer magnitude of the task
and the lack of an established supply system guaranteed that
serious problems of procurement and distribution would ensue at
least initially. Never had Americans undertaken such a colossal
effort of organization and finance, and Congress was not prepared
to act decisively on such matters. Congress's policies toward the
army generally were dictated by temporary expedients; its sporadic
attempts to meet its obligations to the Continental troops were
disorganized and unsystematic. Overall, Congress's administration
of military matters can be characterized as inefficient, and its
bureaucratic wranglings only exacerbated its lack of experience and
its inability to make useful projections about the critical needs
of the army in the field. Representing the people of thirteen
different states was not an easy matter, and the delegates were
forced to govern by consensus and to administer by committee.

When Washington arrived in Massachusetts to take command of
the Continental army in July 1775 he immediately recognized the
severe problems that would plague his army throughout the war. The
first sight that awaited him at Cambridge was the motley-clad
troops, and one of the first general orders that he issued (4 July
1775) called for exact returns of all sorts of supplies---provisions,
ordnance stores, powder, lead, tools, tents, camp
kettles, etc.---and was at pains to ensure that each man was given
at least one blanket. The same month another general order (23
July 1775) was aimed at eliminating the difficulties and confusion
caused by the shortage of uniforms.

The fledgling army's worrisome supply shortages were rendered
especially critical by the increasing likelihood that the raw, ill-clad
troops would be obliged to continue besieging Boston during
the harsh New England winter. Realizing that preparations for
winter could not be begun too soon, Washington in early August
directed the construction of board huts to house the soldiers, and
on 4-5 August 1775 he wrote Continental Congress president John
Hancock, "I need not enlarge upon the Variety of Necessities such
as Cloathing, Fuel & Co.---both exceedingly scarce & difficult to be
procured, which that Season must bring with it."

In a circular letter to his general officers, written on 8
September, Washington predicted that a shortage of wood for fuel
would make it "too probable that Fences, woods, orchards, and even
Houses themselves, will fall Sacrifices to the want of Fuel, before
the end of the winter." In the same letter Washington wondered
whether the lack of clothing, blankets, and "proper Covering" would
cause the soldiers to return home as they came to feel the severity
of winter. These concerns were repeated at a council of war held
by the general officers at Cambridge three days later. During the
first week of October Washington informed the Massachusetts General
Court that the season already had advanced too far to provide
sufficient barracks for the troops and thus many of the houses in
and around Cambridge would have to be appropriated for the
soldiers' use. In addition to living in crude huts that first
winter, the men were quartered in thirty-six houses in Chelsea,
crowding the local inhabitants, who were themselves, according to
Lt. Col. Loammi Baldwin, "vastly destressed and impoverished by
repeated difficulties."

To feed the army during the winter months, fifteen thousand
barrels of flour were purchased in Philadelphia and shipped to
Boston via Newburyport. As the "Season for killing Pork" (the
fall) approached, Commissary General Joseph Trumbull wrote
Washington on 6 September, a large number of hogs was ordered to be
purchased, driven to within twenty miles of the camp, where they
would be slaughtered and salted.

In August teams of horses, carriages, and wagons had been
hired to supplement those owned by the Continental army; by the
following October the same items were impressed into service as
hiring became more difficult due to the demands of the New England
harvest. (The same situation arose for boats and other small
vessels.) In early December baggage wagons and gun carriages,
harnesses, etc. were still in great demand, and impressment
continued throughout the winter. Hay for the horses was also in
great demand.

It was not sufficient, however, simply to feed and quarter the
men of the army. As soldiers they also had to be equipped to
fight, and the lack of arms and ammunition were a constant problem.
As early as August Washington wrote John Hancock, lamenting the
"Scarcity of Ammunition," an "Evil" alleviated only somewhat by the
recent arrival of a large quantity from New York. The merchant firm
of Clark & Nightingale of Providence, Rhode Island, obtained a
small supply of powder, lead, and arms in early September, but the
purchase of small quantities could not begin to fill the need.
Critical shortages of arms, gunpowder, and ammunition appeared not
only in Massachusetts, where the British army was encamped, but in
Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, and even
Virginia. Gunpowder had been sent to Cambridge from Connecticut
and New York the previous June, leaving the latter colony, in
Washington's words, "almost destitute of that necessary Article."
Capt. Cornelius Van Dyke's company of New York militia, for
example, was ordered to march up the Mohawk River to counter a
possible Indian attack without a supply of ammunition. The
situation had improved only marginally by September, despite
desperate attempts to purchase and manufacture gunpowder, lead, and
small arms.

Washington later complained to his brother John Augustine
Washington that "we are obliged to Submit to an almost daily
Cannonade without returning a Shott from our scarcity of Powder,
which we are necessitated to keep for closer work than Cannon
Distance whenever the red Coat gentry pleases to step out of their
Intrenchments."

Nor did Washington always have the financial resources to
supply his army. By early September the military chest was also
"totally exhausted," and the commissary general's credit was soon
strained to the utmost. Money was lacking to pay riflemen, who
were critical to the army. One million dollars was appropriated by
Congress in early October, alleviating the situation temporarily,
but the long term problem of financing thew war was never solved.

To make the problem of preparing for winter more vexing, the
terms of enlistments for many soldiers were about to expire. Many
soldiers who were willing to reenlist as their enlistments ran out
would agree to reenlist only under the condition that they could
return home and prepare their winter clothing, or so wrote Col.
Samuel Holden Parsons and Lt. Col. Experience Storrs to Washington
in separate letters of 23 October 1775.

Washington complained to James Warren on 2 November 1775 that
"different Regiments were upon the point of Cutting each others
throats for a few Standing Locusts near their incampments to dress
their victuals with."

Enlistments of the old army expired with the old year; by 31
December 1775 less than half of the 20,000 men authorized by the
Continental Congress had been recruited for the new army, thus
forcing Washington to call out the militia reinforcements. The
"confused & distorded [sic] state" of the army made it impossible
for
Washington to get exact returns of the numbers of men actually
present and fit for duty, and by 10 January 1776 he found himself
"weaker than I had any Idea of" and requested the Massachusetts
council to call out more militia reinforcements. Moreover,
confusion and lack of discipline within the new army was accompanied by
increased filth and garbage about the barracks. Blankets,
clothing, arms, and other military stores that were sorely needed
by the main army at Cambridge had been stockpiled near Quebec,
hundreds of miles away from the troops who needed them.

The remainder of the years of the war passed in much the same
way as that first one. The lessons learned by Washington during
that critical first winter led to reforms, but efforts to
change things the following spring and summer were not sufficient
to improve the situation much. On 24 July 1777 Brig. Gen. George
Clinton wrote to inform Washington that 30,000 pounds of hard bread
sent in bulk to Fort Montgomery, New York, had been "so much broken
as to render it almost unfit to be used," nor were there empty
casks in which to convey it. This despite the fact that the very
next day Connecticut governor Jonathan Trumbull, Sr., could write
to Washington that "The Earth Helpeth us---I never saw it better
cover'd with its Fruits for our Support; The Enemy threaten it's
[sic] Destruction; May God prevent them!" At that time the army's
most
severe trial lay yet ahead, and in fact it survived the famous
winter at Valley Forge because of the heroic efforts of Maj. Gen.
Nathanael Greene to reform the supply and transportation system
during the winter of 1777-1778. It would be near the war's end,
however, before Robert Morris could step in to set the army's
supply system on a solid foundation.

Appendix I

The Continental Congress passed a resolution on 4 November
1775 defining the ration of each enlisted soldier:

Resolved, That a ration consist of the following kind
and quantity of provisions, viz:

1 lb. of beef, or 3/4 lb. pork, or 1 lb. salt fish, per day.
1 lb. of bread or flour per day.
3 pints of pease, or beans per week, or vegitables equivalent,
at one dollar per bushel for pease or beans.
1 pint of milk per man per day, or at the rate of 1/72 of a
dollar.
1 half pint of Rice, or 1 pint of indian meal per man per
week.
1 quart of spruce beer or cyder per man per day, or nine
gallons of Molasses per company of 100 men per week.
3 lb. candles to 100 Men per week for guards.
24 lb. of soft or 8 lb. of hard soap for 100 men per week.

Appendix II

On 23 December 1775 Congress appointed a committee to consider
what articles were necessary for the army, and the committee
brought in the following report:

The Committee appointed to enquire what Articles are necessary
for the Army beg Leave to report that in their Opinion the
following Goods and Stores are absolutely necessary and ought to be
imported as soon as possible, vizt.

Sterling.

60,000 striped Blankets, suppose 5/. . . . . . . . . .

15,000

120,000 yds. of 6/4 Broadcloth, the Cols. to be brown and blue from 3/ to 6/ per yd. average 4/ . . . . . . .

Your Comee having also taken into Consideration the best Ways
and Means for supplying the continental Treasury with Silver and
Gold beg leave to report that the Sum of 160,000 Dollars be laid
out in the Produce of these Colonies and exported agreeable to the
Resolves of this Congress to proper Ports in Europe and the West
Indies and there disposed of for Gold and Silver to be Imported
into the Continental Treasury as soon as may be.